


A Far Cry Gone

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo Amnesty Fills [16]
Category: Days Gone (Video Game), Far Cry 5
Genre: Crossover, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Illnesses, Sick Character, Strong Language, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:22:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23884435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Boozer’s found a rarity in the Shit: A woman who doesn’t immediately try to blow his balls off.(Just his head.)
Series: hc_bingo Amnesty Fills [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/942342
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	A Far Cry Gone

You know, the apocalypse had spoiled Boozer.  
  
Once upon a time, you had to be mindful walking in and out of a building, just in case someone was about to come through that same door and you needed to not collide with them. Nowadays it was the Freakers he needed to worry about, and they generally made themselves pretty obvious at a distance.  
  
Walking through the front door of the long-abandoned convenience store and nearly colliding with a very-alive human woman on her way out had been almost as shockingly frightening as running into a Screamer.  
  
Incidentally, this might be how she managed to get the drop on him.  
  
Boozer only narrowly avoided taking a fist to the jaw, but couldn’t avoid the foot that came up to kick him in the ribs, knocking the air out of him and causing him to fall on his back into the dirt. There used to be a time when getting into random fights with strangers used to have more predictable outcomes (Boozer often found himself the bigger and stronger one in such encounters), but nowadays anyone you met out in the Shit had at least enough muscle on them to keep themselves alive.  
  
He rolled onto his knees and jumped up as she pulled a pistol off her hip, cocking it and leveling it at his chest. His shotgun was strapped to his back; there was no way he could draw it faster than her, and there was no cover nearby, so Boozer defaulted to his last-ditch attempt at avoiding getting shot: Playing nice.  
  
“ _Whoa,_ lady! Chill out!”  
  
The woman didn’t speak- she also didn’t shoot.  
  
Boozer held his hands up. “Just looking for supplies. Not looking for a fight.”  
  
Silence.  
  
“Come on, you bumped into me walking through the door. Obviously I wasn’t trying to ambush you, or I’d have had a weapon out?”  
  
A moment’s pause…  
  
…And then, slowly, she lowered the gun.  
  
Boozer huffed and puffed for a moment, leaning over to brace his hands on his knees. Normally he wouldn’t expose the back of his head to someone with a gun, but if he was reading the situation right, this lady needed reassurance that he wasn’t going to jump her. Casual, submissive postures and a lack of aggression was the best way to get out of this situation alive. “Jesus, you pack a punch- kick, I mean. If you broke a rib, I _demand_ painkillers as reparations.”  
  
The woman remained silent.  
  
She wasn’t bad looking at all, this lady; not much older or younger than Boozer (she could have been a very young-looking forty or a very mature-looking twenty, which likely meant that she was about thirty) with black hair and dark gray eyes. Now that he paid attention, those eyes were a little bloodshot, and her skin had a pallor to it- and Boozer was starting to wonder if the slight shake to her limbs was fear, overexertion, or a sense of exhaustion that had been there even before they’d run into one another.  
  
“You a drifter? You new around here? Haven’t seen you before.”  
  
Her eyes jumped to the shotgun on his back. The pistol was at her side, but her grip on it was still tight enough that Boozer figured she was still willing to use it. “Yeah,” she grunted, shifting slightly.  
  
It was that small shift that caused her jacket to slip to the side, and on her hip Boozer was surprised to spy a badge clipped to her hip: Looked like a Sheriff’s badge, maybe a Deputy’s. Former cops were a rare breed in the Shit, since most of them had been on the front lines when everything had gone to hell.  
  
“Where you from?”  
  
The woman cleared her throat. “Montana.” The longer, multisyllabic word gave her away: Her voice rasped and cracked badly enough to suggest sickness. It was probably why she hadn’t spoken: She hadn’t wanted to tip Boozer off that she was weak.  
  
“Shit bad out there too?”  
  
She cocked an eyebrow at him.  
  
“Yeah, alright, dumb question.”  
  
She started coughing, her free arm coming up to cover her mouth with her elbow. Boozer started chuckling before he could stop himself. “What?” She croaked, glaring at him.  
  
“Just- You’re-” He grinned, shaking his head. “-might as well cover your mouth with your hand at this point, right?”  
  
“What, and kill off everyone that’s still left with the flu?” She shook her head. “Just because everyone that’s left alive’s turned into a bunch of discourteous assholes doesn’t mean I need to.”  
  
Boozer snorted, reached for the canteen of water on his belt- the woman sharply raised the pistol again, and Boozer lifted his hands. “Easy, just getting this: Here.” He held out the canteen to her; she eyed it warily. Boozer rolled his eyes, and then pointedly took a gulp of water from it first before holding it out again. “See? Not poisoned.”  
  
She hesitated, and then stretched an arm out to take the flask. “Thanks.”  
  
Boozer eyed her as she drank. That she’d calmed down so quickly was a good sign: Most people in the Shit had hardened to a point where they didn’t trust anyone or anything anymore. Maybe whatever place she’d come from had managed to maintain some thin threads of human decency or community for the last two years. Whatever the case, Boozer’s confidence in the idea that she didn’t _want_ to blow his head off was growing steadily. “You look kinda shitty. You sick?”  
  
She finished drinking, and then shrugged. “Eh.”  
  
Still didn’t trust him. Still, she hadn’t been wrong: Even the relatively minor shit could become a big shit nowadays.  
  
“There are camps nearby,” Boozer said. “Peaceful Lake and Lost Lake, they’ll take you in if you’re willing to carry your weight.” He left Tucker’s camp out. He’d do business with her, but Tucker took “everyone needs to pull their own weight” to an extreme that didn’t make him comfortable sending people her way if he could help it. If they could still stand, they could work, was her motto.  
  
The woman sniffed. “Not really interested in hopping into a camp.”  
  
“Well, if you’re gonna stay out in the shit, you should probably find someone to keep up with. Lots of freakers come up this way from the highway, so we get a lot of hordes this way. Lot of violent drifters, too. You find the road blocked around here, turn around and go back, because chances are there’s an ambush waiting for you.”  
  
“Huh.” She seemed to be considering her words carefully. “So it’s shit out here?”  
  
“We literally call it ‘The Shit’. Anything outside of a major camp is ‘The Shit’. You sure wherever you came from is as bad as a place that stretches up near a major highway from California?”  
  
She looked less sure now. “Huh,” she said again, pensively this time. Maybe Montana was looking better every moment that passed. He hoped she wouldn’t broadcast that: Attracting attention to a place less shitty than here would only encourage the shit-bag side of the local drifters- and the Rippers- to migrate east.  
  
“Might be worth it to head back wherever you came from,” Boozer said, because everywhere was shit but there had to be _some_ places in this great big fucking country that were relatively un-fucked.  
  
The woman sniffed, looking at the ground; that was good, it meant she felt safe enough to take her eyes off him. “Yeah, well, won’t be happening tonight.”  
  
Boozer hesitated, and then shrugged. “Well, if you’ve got a bike, I can lead you to Copeland’s camp for now. He’s a sovcit dickhead, but that’s exactly why he won’t give you any shit if and when you try to leave later.”  
  
She sighed, rubbing her face. “Guess I’ll have to, for now. I’m fucked if I run into a- you said you call them freakers?”  
  
“Yeah,” Boozer said as he pulled his bike out from where he’d stashed it between a couple of wrecked cars. “What do you call ‘em?”  
  
She snorted. “We just called them zombies.”  
  
“Well, now that’s just not very creative,” Boozer scoffed as he pushed his bike down the road, following her to where she’d stashed hers in the trees nearby. “Speaking of which: I go by Boozer. You?”  
  
The woman hesitated, weighing her options as she pulled her bike around before saying, “Hudson.”  
  
“Good to meet you. Oh, and by the way: That badge you got on your hip? Put it away before we get to Copeland’s. Like most sovcits, even nowadays he’s kinda hostile towards cops.”  
  
Hudson sniffed again, revving her bike. “I’m familiar with the type, trust me.”  
  
“Well, get ready then, because most people in the camp are just like them.”  
  
“Not you, though?”  
  
Boozer shook his head. “Nah. I got a buddy I stay out in the Shit with, and we do supply runs for the camps, but for the most part we keep to ourselves.” He glanced back at her. “Seriously, though, if you’ve got people back east, go back to them. Better to be in the Shit with your own people than in the Shit with strangers.”  
  
Hudson nodded. “Not the worst bit of advice I’ve ever heard.”  
 _  
Now if only I could get Deac to say the same._  
  
“Stick close, we’ll be there in no time.”  
  
“Right behind you.”  
  
They took off, Freaker-screeching faint and echoing in the distance.  
  
-End

**Author's Note:**

> IDK man, I was thinking about doing a larger story with roughly this plot (focusing on Hudson and Boozer, kinda coinciding with the events of Days Gone) but it occurred to me to maybe do a test-run with this story first, see how it flows.


End file.
